The Too-Much-Information Age

War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today, by Max Boot (Gotham, 640 pp., $35)

RETROSPECTIVES on the Rumsfeld era in the Pentagon have focused on the war in Iraq and the various issues surrounding it-pre-war intelligence, weapons of mass destruction, lack of planning for the post-major-combat-operations phase, and so forth. Yet Secretary Rumsfeld’s most important legacy may well turn out to be a paradigm shift in the defense establishment encapsulated in the concept of “Defense Transformation.” The changes that have taken place under the “transformation” rubric will revolutionize how the United States fights wars and manages the business of national security for years to come. Its precepts are enshrined in documents such as the Quadrennial Defense Review, the National Military Strategy, and other supporting strategies, many of which are unfamiliar outside the confines of the national-security community, but which are reshaping views of threats, risks, capabilities, and objectives.

About the Author

James S. Robbins

James S. Robbins is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.

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War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today, by Max Boot (Gotham, 640 pp., $35)

RETROSPECTIVES on the Rumsfeld era in the Pentagon have focused on the war in Iraq and the various issues surrounding it-pre-war intelligence, weapons of mass destruction, lack of planning for the post-major-combat-operations phase, and so forth. Yet Secretary Rumsfeld’s most important legacy may well turn out to be a paradigm shift in the defense establishment encapsulated in the concept of “Defense Transformation.” The changes that have taken place under the “transformation” rubric will revolutionize how the United States fights wars and manages the business of national security for years to come. Its precepts are enshrined in documents such as the Quadrennial Defense Review, the National Military Strategy, and other supporting strategies, many of which are unfamiliar outside the confines of the national-security community, but which are reshaping views of threats, risks, capabilities, and objectives.